In
a world saturated with media, we need to toss our news into the washing
machine and give it a good spin to get the stains out of our reality.

Yet,
doing the wash isn't always easy. Each item requires a different
spincycle. With the high concentration of images, stories, reports,
and statistics, going through the laundry can be quite a task. As
a college freshman soon realizes, if you throw everything into the
wash at once, your end product may be more of a messthan the dirty
clothes you started with.

It's
time to sort. Envision the media-everything frombroadcasting television
stories, magazine covers, print, or hypertext-as articles of clothing
in a giant laundry hamper:text, images, stories, all scattered around,
ready to get a clean rinse.

In
our metaphorical world of media, factual articles and news reports
can be sorted into the Permanent Press cycle. Stories that delve
deep into issues are put into the Deep Clean pile. More sensitive
issues of local or controversial topics are placed in Delicates.
And every article eventually goes through the Final Spin.

Yet,
even with these parameters for sorting, there are certain items
that continue to pose a problem:

There
is always the obnoxious red shirt, you know what we mean, the shirt
that stubbornly bleeds its hue on your other clothes, making your
whites that discolored, sickly pink. The red shirt in the news industry
is the hook, the flashy, sensational story, image, or sound that
you cannot help take your eyes, ears, or mind away from. Like the
red shirt, it draws you in but eventually taints the rest of what
you understand or experience.

Furthermore,
the red shirt stands out from the other colors, often by virtue
of being out of context. It has shock or sensational value through
its place as an isolated phenomenon. In the media, there are endless
red shirts. Marketed as "news," these elements of shock
lack context. One cannot fully appropriate meaning unless an event
is related to the old and is presented with factual consecutiveness
and coordination with the past.

Similarly,
media marketed as entertainment use the "red shirt" tactic
to attract consumers. Magazines, commercials, and tabloids over
the years have declaratively announced: "Cures for AIDS,"
"New Sex Secrets," or "Instant Weight Loss."
Even if you see through them, these senseless sensations sell-and
sell in vast numbers.

Have
you ever wondered where all the missing socks go? The same is true
in the US
coverage of events. In a nation that prides itself for its freedom
of speech, why has so much been withheld? Important stories such
as the US illegally removing 8,000 incriminating pages from Iraq's
weapons report to the UN are barely covered in mainstream media.
And coverage of the Western development "tactics" employed
in Latin America is more about what the US has to gain than what
the country must forfeit. And yet, the word "imperialism"
doesn't exactly show up in USA Today.

We
always wondered if there was a creature lurking behind the dryer,
removing socks with an ulterior motive. Maybe such a being exists
in the mainstream press, cleverly removing stories. Why has the
public been withheld from the knowledge of the US's use of depleted
uranium in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia that have resulted
in cancer rates in theses areas skyrocketing since the first Gulf
War?

Will
these socks be forever lost? Media critic John Dewey wrote that,
"Ideas that are not communicated, shared, and reborn in expression
are but soliloquy, and a soliloquy is but broken and imperfect thought."
We need to pair up, literally, to retrieve these missing socks.
The voices, opinions, and perspective of others both inside and
outside or community and nation need to be heard to combat the gaps
in information available.

News
is thrown at the masses today like the force of a washing machine
on spin cycle. Sometimes one needs to take in an alternative spin,
hear the thoughts of others, and give the multifaceted views time
to soak. We aspire to give the media a clean rinse and a fresh spin.

Today
in California, actor, marijuana connoisseur, womanizer and steroid freak,
Arnold Schwarzenegger won the kookiest gubernatorial race starring the craziest
cast of characters since Cannon Ball Run 2
Get the full stories....

·
Check your facts. Always look for sources, works cited, or footnotes.
If information is quoted by an "expert" - look up the expert
to see what their expertise consists of (if any).

·
Double check your facts. Look for the same "facts" in multiple
sources. But be careful to universalize a "fact" just because
it has replicated itself in a variety of sources. Especially with news
stories, check facts against both domestic AND international publications.
The only way to counteract bias is with knowledge, ignorance only lets
it grow.

o Perhaps
the biggest tool to access knowledge to counteract bias accounts is through
the Internet. In its current unregulated state, we can access all types
of independent media organizations. They bring a variety of alternative
viewpoints on mainstream issues and highlight the ramifications of issues
that fail to even make the mainstream news.

o Even reading one more newspaper each morning will provide details and
insight left out of the first source due to traditional time and space
constraints of daily print publications.

·
Know the difference between news and entertainment. (This statement
appears easier said than done- example Cosmo: sometimes stories presented
as "true" but must be viewed in light of entertainment, not
fact.) We should be able to intelligently judge the messages received
for both news and entertainment. We should be able to deliver messages
in addition to receiving them. We should know how to register objection
if denied coverage of our viewpoints and prevented access to professing
them.

·
Embrace your subjectivity. While objectivity is an admired goal, no
one can fully escape the cultural lens they see (and thus interpret) events
though. Realize this and acknowledge your own subjectivity both when reading
other's work as well as when it's your turn to state "the facts."

·
Realizing the difference between consumers vs. citizens and isolated individuals
vs. engaged communities is another step to take as well. Unlike what
advertisers hope to convince us of, changes cannot be made by the individual.
It takes the individual finding other individuals and forming a community;
what communication is all about.